Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Comedy gold: Obama's favorite reporter interviews John Kerry

It doesn't get much sillier than this. @JeffreyGoldberg interviews @JohnKerry, who describes the deal that guarantees that Iran will be a nuclear armed state as 'pro-Israel.'

Kerry rejected criticism from Israel,
and from many in the American Jewish community, that by publicly
warning Israel that it will be further isolated internationally if the
deal should be rejected, he has encouraged scapegoating of the Jewish
state: “If you’ve ever played golf, you know that you yell ‘fore’
off the tee,” he explained. “You’re not threatening somebody, you’re
warning them: ‘Look, don’t get hit by the ball, it’s coming.’”

Kerry believes that a congressional rejection of the deal will lead
to war—he explains his theory of his case in detail below—and he finds
the “visceral” and “emotional” criticism of the deal in Israel, and
among many of Israel’s supporters, flummoxing. “I’ve gone through this
backwards and forwards a hundred times and I’m telling you, this deal is
as pro-Israel, as pro-Israel’s security, as it gets,” Kerry said. “And I
believe that just saying no to this is, in fact, reckless.” When I
asked him how he interprets Israeli criticism of the deal, he said there
is a “a huge level of fear and mistrust and, frankly, there’s an
inherent sense that, given Iran’s gains and avoidance in the past, that
somehow they’re going to avoid something again. It’s a visceral feeling,
it’s very emotional and visceral and I’m very in tune with that and
very sensitive to that.”

Though he says he is in tune with this set of Israeli fears, he does
not endorse a view widely shared by Israelis—and by many Americans—that
Iran’s leaders, who have often said that they seek the destruction of Israel,
mean what they say. “I think they have a fundamental ideological
confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that
translates into active steps to, quote, ‘Wipe it,’ you know ...” Here I
interjected: “Wipe it off the map.”

Kerry continued: “I don’t
know the answer to that. I haven’t seen anything that says to me—they’ve
got 80,000 rockets in Hezbollah pointed at Israel, and any number of
choices could have been made. They didn’t make the bomb when they had
enough material for 10 to 12. They’ve signed on to an agreement where
they say they’ll never try and make one and we have a mechanism in place
where we can prove that. So I don’t want to get locked into that
debate. I think it’s a waste of time here.”

They didn't make the bomb when they had enough material for 10-12 (which only happened during the Obama administration by the way), because they figured why become a pariah when a little bit of patience will let you do it with the 'international community's approval.

The highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House announced his
opposition to the nuclear accord with Iran on Tuesday, in a blow to the
Obama administration’s lobbying efforts.

"I'm going to vote
against the Iran deal," Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) — the former head of
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — told Newsday.

"I
tried very hard to get to yes. But at the end of the day, despite some
positive elements in the deal, the totality compelled me to oppose it.”

In
addition to Rep. Israel, Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Ted Deutch
(D-Fla.) also came out against the deal on Tuesday, saying that the
multinational agreement did not include enough safeguards to prevent
Iran from cheating on its commitments or limit it from supporting
extremist groups such as Hezbollah.

“After a decade in public life
working to stop Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, I cannot
support a deal giving Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief — in
return for letting it maintain an advanced nuclear program and the
infrastructure of a threshold nuclear state,” Deutch wrote in the
Broward County Sun Sentinel.

So it's not just the Israelis who are opposed.

Kerry's flippant attitude toward this really grates. In a lot of ways, he's even more irritating than Obama. UPDATE 3:50 PMForgot to show you this:

“The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that
you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said.
“This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate
screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will
prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming
back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a
suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to
negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be
his point.”

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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com